Seen from the taxi, on the long ride in from the airport, the place looked slower, shabbier, and, in defiance of all chronology, older than New York… the low buildings, the industrial plants, and the railroad crossings at grade produced less the feeling of being in a great city than of riding through an endless succession of factory-town main streets.

The Chicagoan, a homegrown publication that intentionally mimicked The New Yorker in both design and content, offers a different take. From 1926 to 1935, it strove to counteract the city’s thuggish reputation (Al Capone, anyone?) by drawing attention to its cultural offerings and high society doings.

Outside of Chicago, no one cared much. Having failed to replicate TheNew Yorker’s national success, it folded, leaving behind very few surviving copies.

Neil Harris, a University of Chicago Professor Emeritus of History, has righted that wrong by arranging for the university library’s near complete collection of Chicagoans to be uploaded to a searchable online database.

The covers have a Jazz Age vibrancy, as do articles, advertisements, and cartoons aimed at Chicago’s smart set. There’s even a Helen Hokinson cartoon, in the form of a Borden cheese ad.

Four years earlier, in Vol. 9, No. 3, Robert Pollack’s Musical Notes column made mention of Leonard Liebling, a critic for the New York American… (I can hear A.J. beyond-the-grave snickering even now).

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Open Culture editor Dan Colman scours the web for the best educational media. He finds the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & movies you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.